CAIRN Energy is stepping up exploration activity off Senegal after its latest well underlined the potential of a find made off the West African country.
The Edinburgh-based oil and gas firm announced plans to drill an exploration well which analysts had not expected. It will test a prospect Cairn reckons could contain around 100 million barrels oil.
The decision to drill underlines Cairn’s belief in the potential of its Senegal acreage, on which the company made two big finds in quick succession in 2014.
The well will also conduct further appraisal work on one of the finds made by Cairn in 2014, SNE, which the company has said may have been the largest oil discovery made anywhere in the world that year.
Cairn reckons SNE could contain up to around 900 million barrels recoverable oil.
The company said the results of the latest appraisal well drilled on the find, SNE 5, were in line with expectations. The well encountered oil in the areas targeted and flowed at up to 4,500 barrels oil daily.
Cairn said the well was drilled ahead of schedule and under budget.
Chief executive Simon Thomson has noted Cairn’s strong balance sheet has allowed it to capitalise on the fall in the cost of support services seen amid the downturn triggered by the crude price plunge.
Analysts at Barclays said the initial result from the SNE 5 well was unlikely to impact Cairn shares. It was more significant that Cairn and partners had decided to drill an exploration target ahead of the SNE-6 appraisal well.
Cairn Energy shares closed up 6.7p at 224.2p.
The company will announce its annual results today.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here